This week we are talking about the Problem of Material Constitution: how can a material object retains its identity through change? To bring the problem into focus, we looked at the Ship of Theseus, a very strange thought experiment. A tempting thought when things get weird is to punt to skepticism. You might think, “This is exactly why I hate philosophers. Why waste your time on pointless questions like this?!” After all, it seems obvious that material things survive change and if philosophy is going to say otherwise then it’s stupid. What can we say about philosophy when it seems to go off the deep end? Here are three ideas.
1. Breaking you down to build you back up
Socrates, one of the progenitors of Western philosophy, was sentenced to death for moral corruption of the youth. I like to believe the following account is why. In a passage in Plato’s Meno, Socrates interrogates Meno into exposing his ignorance about the nature of 
virtue. This can easily be mistaken for an attack on the existence of virtue itself, but I think Socrates’ purpose is to bring Meno to a better understanding of virtue because he believes such understanding will steel Meno’s resolve to be virtuous in the face of temptation whereas a faulty understanding will cause him to falter. For example, I might resist trying heroin because my parents told me so, but I’ll be much more likely to reject it if I see its effect on others and learn the staggering statistics of misery.
In the same way, when philosophy gets wacky such as in the case of material constitution, we might not have to construe our inquiry as destructive. Imagine the Ship of Theseus paradox actually happens. Someone takes all the replaced planks, rebuilds the ship, and posts it on eBay. Had you already bought the continuous ship, seeing the eBay advertisement might shake your faith in the existence of material objects. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a theory as to how material objects can retain their identity through time? Maybe that’s all we’re after when we talk about the Problem of Material Constitution.
2. Philosophy takes time
One of my favorite quotes about philosophy comes from Harm J.M.J. Gorris. When evaluating a philosophical theory that would have us reject a common-sense view of the world, Gorris says, “I think philosophy must first do its homework and present an airtight, non-circular argument before it may dismiss such an intuitive insight as mere illusion.” That stuck with me because it resolved an issue that had been haunting me. When he converted to theism, then-renowned atheist A.J. Ayer gave the rationale that we must, “Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.” What bothered me about that quote was that throughout history people have thought up new arguments for and against God. What if the evidence changes just a little tomorrow so that it slightly favors the opposite? For me, faith 
is life-changing. Am I to change my life with the academic wind?
Gorris’ quote is important to me because it reminds me that we don’t need to throw out our beliefs just because some new, wacky doctrine comes along. Philosophy actually takes a long, long time to advance, and what is philosophically fashionable today needs some time under its belt before it can be established. Philosophers are working daily to show why philosophical theories are untenable. It could easily be the case that the new, cutting-edge theory of today is the cautionary tale of tomorrow. Maybe when philosophy gets weird, we should just wait.
3. The world is weird
In college, a friend of mine ran into a tree so hard that his legs and arms literally shot out like on a cartoon. It was one of the greatest moments of my life and I still cherish the memory. However, if we are being scientifically accurate, he never did run into the tree. Our best science has led us to conclude all physical objects are actually made up of much smaller particles that never truly touch each other. Both my friend and the tree are made up of a tiny fraction of a percentage of stuff, and the rest is empty space. Instead of hitting the tree, the electrons in my friend were unable to fill the 
correct role in the atoms of the tree and vice versa due to some bizarre atomic property. When we look at my friend and the tree, however, it certainly doesn’t look that way. It looks like both are totally solid, filled-in objects that smack into each other. In other words, the world is a lot weirder than it initially looks.
Philosophy makes strange claims at times. Sometimes it is only for the sake of better understanding of common sense, sometimes it’s just because philosophy hasn’t had enough time to work things out, but it might be just because the world is weird. If science has established that the world is totally different than it appears, then maybe we should expect the same of philosophy. It would be odd to say that the world isn’t as intuitive as it seems after we’ve done science, but then we do philosophy and it’s totally what we anticipated. Maybe weird is just what we should expect.
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